Information about Steve Prefontaine

Steve Roland Prefontaine (January 25, 1951 – May 30, 1975) (nicknamed Pre) was an American Olympic runner who inspired a running boom in the 1970s along with contemporaries Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers. Born and raised in Coos Bay, Oregon, Prefontaine was primarily a long distance runner, and at one point held the American record in every running event from the 2000 meters to the 10,000 meters.^[1] Prefontaine had one leg longer than the other (a common condition that does not affect running speed), and due to this he was told to give up on his dream of being the fastest runner on earth. He is known for his extremely aggressive "front-running" racing style and always believing in giving a full effort. Prefontaine died at the age of 24 in a car accident.

Marshfield High School (1966–1969)

As a freshman at Marshfield High School in Coos Bay, Oregon, Prefontaine found some success in cross country running. With help from the Marshfield cross country coach, Walt McClure, he placed 53rd in the state meet. The same year Prefontaine established personal bests of 5:01 in the mile and 10:08 in the two mile. Determined to improve, Prefontaine undertook a high-mileage training plan during the summer, and placed 6th in the year-end state meet.

His sophomore season was unspectacular, with the exception of the district cross country meet, where Pre stayed close with the state mile and cross country champions. He followed up with a 4:31 indoor mile, but his fourth-place finish in that spring’s district track meet failed to qualify him for the high school state meet in his primary event, the two-mile. He continued rigorous training at the end of the cross country season in preparation for track. His training, however, might have been too strenuous because Prefontaine failed to qualify for the state meet.

Pre's junior and senior years proved highly successful. He won every meet, including the Oregon states, and set a national high school record his senior year in the two mile race with a time of 8:41.5 (breaking Rick Riley's 8:48.4 from 1966).

Overall, Prefontaine broke 19 National High School Records in track.

University of Oregon (1969–1973)

Following high school, Prefontaine enrolled at the University of Oregon to train under coach Bill Bowerman (who later co-founded Blue Ribbon Sports, the precursor to the Nike shoe company). Pre joined the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity as an undergraduate. After his freshman year, in which he finished 3rd in the NCAA National Cross Country meet, he suffered only two more defeats in college (both in the mile), winning three Division I NCAA Cross Country championships and four straight three-mile titles in Track and Field.

Prefontaine was an aggressive runner, insisting on going out hard and not relinquishing leads, a tactic that his fans and fellow competitors admired. A local celebrity, chants of "Pre! Pre! Pre!" became a staple at Hayward Field, a mecca of sorts for track and field in the USA. Fans wore t-shirts that read "LEGEND." Fans of other teams wore shirts that read "Stop Pre" at his meets. Prefontaine gained national attention, and then appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated at age 19.

Pre set the American record in the 5000 meter race, the event that took him to the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich. However, Prefontaine was passed with 150m remaining by eventual winner Lasse Viren and silver medalist Mohamed Gammoudi. He lost a third place position to Britain's hard-charging Ian Stewart in the last 15 meters of the race, after having led nearly the entire last mile in a toe-to-toe battle with Viren.

Returning for his senior year at the University of Oregon, Prefontaine ended his collegiate career with only three defeats in Eugene, all in the mile. It was during this year that Pre began a protracted fight with the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), which demanded that athletes who wanted to remain "amateur" for the Olympics could not be paid for appearances in track meets. Some viewed this arrangement unfair, because the athletes drew large crowds that generated millions of dollars. At this time, the AAU was taking away amateur status if athletes were endorsed in any way. Because Prefontaine was accepting free clothes and footwear from Nike, he was subjected to the AAU's ruling. Bowerman, who also fought the AAU's restrictions, began calling Prefontaine "Rube" because of his naivety and stubbornness.

Post-collegiate (1974–1975)

Following his collegiate career at Oregon, Pre prepared for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, setting American records in every race from 2000 to 10000 meters.

Death

On May 30, 1975, returning from a party and after dropping off friend and distance champion Frank Shorter, Prefontaine was driving down a familiar road, Skyline Boulevard, near Hendricks Park, when his car, a gold 1973 MGB,^[2] swerved left and hit a rock wall along the side of the street. The overturned car trapped Prefontaine underneath it. The first witness on the scene, who lived nearby, heard two cars, and then a crash. When he ran outside he was almost run over by the second car. He found Prefontaine flat on his back, still alive but pinned beneath the wreck. After attempting to lift the vehicle, the witness ran to get help. By the time he returned with others, the weight of the car had crushed Prefontaine's chest, killing him. He was 24 years old. The cause of the accident has never been determined. Steve Prefontaine is buried at Sunset Memorial Park, Coos Bay, Oregon.

Aftermath

The Eugene Register-Guard called his death "the end of an era." Whether his death was an alcohol-related fatality remains controversial. His blood alcohol content was 0.16, six-hundredths higher than Oregon's legal limit at the time. However, his blood was tested posthumously by a mortician, rather than by a medical examiner. Because the process of decomposition can create alcohol, Pre's blood-alcohol content may have been compromised.

By the time of his death, Prefontaine was a popular athlete, and along with Shorter and Bowerman, Pre is attributed with sparking the running boom of the 1970s. His life story has been detailed in two films, 1997's Prefontaine and 1998's Without Limits, as well as the documentary "Fire on the Track". An annual track event, the Pre Classic, has been held in his honor since 1974.

At the height of his career he held every American track and field record from the 2,000 to the 10,000 meters. Over his career, he won 120 of the 153 races he ran (78 percent). Prefontaine liked to say, "To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the Gift." Many years after his death, Prefontaine remains an icon to some.

Memorials

Pre's Rock is a memorial at the site of the roadside boulder where Prefontaine died. Runners inspired by Prefontaine leave behind memorabilia, such as race numbers, medals, running shoes, etc. Pre's Rock became the newest of all the memorials to Prefontaine when it was dedicated in December, 1997. Located in Hendricks Park, just across the Willamette River from the east end of Pre's Trail, the memorial features a plaque with a picture of Prefontaine that reads:

For your dedication and loyalty To your principles and beliefs... For your love, warmth, and friendship For your family and friends... You are missed by so many And you will never be forgotten...

In Prefontaine's hometown of Coos Bay, there is a plaque-on-a-boulder memorial featuring a relief of his face, records, and date of birth.

The Coos Art Museum in Coos Bay contains a section dedicated to Prefontaine. This section includes medals he won during his career and the pair of spikes he wore when setting a record for the 5,000 at Hayward Field.

In 1983, Prefontaine was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame, where one will find several exhibits showcasing some of his shoes, shirts, and other memorabilia.

Personal records

Distance	Time	Date	Location
1,500 meters	3:38.1	28 June 1973	Helsinki, Finland <ref name ="Goducks" >Steve Prefontaine Bio & Pix. University of Oregon, Official Athletic Site. Retrieved on 2007-02-19.
2,000 meters	5:01.4	9 May, 1975	Coos Bay, Oregon <ref name ="Goducks" />
3,000 meters	7:42.6	2 July, 1974	Milan, Italy <ref name ="Goducks" />
5,000 meters	13:21.87	26 June 1974	Helsinki, Finland <ref name ="Goducks" />
10,000 meters	27:43.6	27 April 1974	Eugene, Oregon <ref name ="Goducks" />
1 mile	3:54.6	20 June 1973	Eugene, Oregon <ref name ="Goducks" />
2 miles	8:18.29	18 July 1974
3 miles	12:51.4	8 June 1974	Eugene, Oregon <ref name ="Goducks" />
6 miles	26:51.8	27 April 1974

Personal quotations

• "To give anything less than your best, is to sacrifice the gift."
• "A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more. Nobody is going to win a 5,000 meter race after running an easy 2 miles. Not with me. If I lose forcing the pace all the way, well, at least I can live with myself."
• "I don't just go out there and run. I like to give people watching something exciting."
• "I run best when I run free."
• "A race is a work of art that people can look at and be affected in as many ways as they're capable of understanding."
• "I'm going to work so that it's a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it."
• "Someone may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it."
• "The only good race pace is suicide pace, and today looks like a good day to die."
• "What I want is to be number one."
• "Something inside of me just said 'Hey, wait a minute, I want to beat him,' and I just took off."
• "Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people stop and say, 'I've never seen anyone run like that before.' It's more than just a race, it's a style. It's doing something better than anyone else. It's being creative."
• "How does a kid from Coos Bay, with one leg longer than the other win races? All my life people have been telling me, 'You're too small Pre', 'You're not fast enough Pre.' 'Give up your foolish dream Steve.' But they forgot something. I have to win"

References

See also

• Pre's Trail

External links

• Official website
• Prefontaine Classic homepage
• Guide to the Bill Bowerman Papers at the University of Oregon
• Steve Prefontaine Bio & Pix - University of Oregon, Official Athletic Site

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Persondata
NAME	Prefontaine, Steve Roland
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Pre, Rube
SHORT DESCRIPTION	United States long distance runner
DATE OF BIRTH	January 25, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH	Coos Bay, Oregon, United States
DATE OF DEATH	May 30, 1975
PLACE OF DEATH	Eugene, Oregon, United States